Between 7,000 and 8,000 minks recently died of COVID-19 infections in Utah mink farms, forcing nine Utah facilities to quarantine. The mink populations likely caught COVID-19 from human workers at the mink farms, and several workers at the farms have tested positive. This is all reported in JoNel Aleccia’s story “Thousands of Minks Dead as COVID Outbreak Escalates on Utah Farms” published Friday in Kaiser Health News.
Are these infected mink farms a hazard to humans in Utah? Although Utah’s State Veterinarian Dean Taylor says there is no evidence of mink-to-human transmission in Utah, a Netherlands study published last month found that the virus has jumped back and forth between humans and minks. And although Utah fur farm operators have imposed extra controls to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 from infected minks to human workers, the same was true of the mink farms in the Netherlands study, and mink-to-human transmission still occurred.
Minks are particularly susceptible to COVID-19. Several outbreaks in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Spain caused more than a million animals to be slaughtered to prevent spread of the disease, and partly as a result the Netherlands now plans to ban mink farming starting next year, and in the meantime is requiring mandatory testing at all mink farms. Utah’s fur farms are far more relaxed, with no testing required; and although Utah minks that die of COVID-19 have their pelts harvested for mink coats and similar uses, infected minks that do not die are kept until they would be killed anyway, with little culling to prevent disease spread.
After COVID-19 infections were first reported in Utah mink farms in August, Michael Whelan of the industry group Fur Commission USA (quoted in August 17’s “Coronavirus Strikes Mink in Utah” by Azi Paybarah of the New York Times) said, “Our mink farms are spread out over a much larger area than in Europe…. We don’t expect an outbreak anything like what is happening in Europe.” With the latest reports of thousands of mink deaths in Utah, Whelan may have been overly optimistic.
Humans in Utah are not doing well either. Utah recorded 1,387 new COVID-19 cases in humans on Sunday, a single-day record. Yesterday the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the highest infection rate in Utah was in Draper in Salt Lake County, with over seven times the infection rate needed to qualify as a red zone. Google Maps reports that five of Utah’s mink farms are based within ten miles of Draper. It’s not publicly known whether these mink farms might be associated with Draper’s high infection rate, as Utah’s State Veterinarian declined to say which farms housed infected minks, or even which counties the infected farms were in.
If the US had an effective COVID-19 response, COVID-19 would be under control in humans and the CDC could have a team in Utah studying whether its mink farms contribute to COVID-19 in humans. As things stand, though, what we have is a COVID-19 epidemic along with a State Veterinarian who says his goal is “safeguarding the health of Utah’s animal industry” (the health of Utah’s animals and humans appears to be secondary), and who is trying to reassure Utahns that they are safe even though he lacks publicly available data to back his assertion or to show that his assertion is regularly tested in the field.
Tomorrow’s vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence is scheduled to take place in the University of Utah’s Kingsbury Hall, which is about ten miles from Margett’s Mink Farm in West Jordan — one of the five mink farms near the COVID-19 hot spot of Draper, Utah.